1 1 The Best Bancassurance Alliance Structure in Taiwan from Financial Supervisory authorities ’ perspectives

In recent years, the formation of strategic alliances has been a growing trend in the financial industry, particularly activities that involve banks and insurance companies, a concept known as bancassurance. In this paper, we explore the most preferable model of financial alliance between banks and insurance companies from the point of view of Taiwan’s supervisory authorities. First, we define four criteria and twelve sub-criteria for use in evaluating six types of financial alliance. Next, we establish a framework for the criteria and sub-criteria using a modified Delphi method. As a decision support system, we incorporate the opinions of industry experts and apply the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique. Based on the evaluations of the expert panel, the financial holding company option was preferred by Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC)